#MillionStudentMarch: Time To Build Political Revolution!

April 7th, 2016

Awake Goy

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Above Photo: From udentmarch.org

We are high school, college, and graduate students, recent graduates, campus workers, former students, parents, and grandparents who came together on November 12th, 2015 to demand tuition-free public college, cancellation of all student debt, and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers. We had over 10,000 people in the streets calling for a free and fair system of education, and now — WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN.

Student debt is currently a key issue in this presidential election. Bernie Sanders has popularized the call for free public college but as he says himself, we won’t win free college without a mass movement of millions in the street. So on April 13th, we’ll be uniting for a second national day of action to bring the political revolution into the streets.

Education should be free. The United States is the richest country in the world, yet students have to take on crippling debt in order to get a college education. The average college graduate of the Class of 2015 has over $35,000 in debt. More than 40 million Americans share a total of $1.2 trillion in student debt and 58 percent of that is held by the poorest 25 percent of Americans.

This is clearly an urgent crisis, but establishment politicians from both parties are refusing to take action. Establishment Democrats and Republicans are bought and sold by the very corporations giving us these bad loans in the first place. Hillary Clinton, Presidential candidate within the Democratic Party, is funded by Wells Fargo — the second biggest student loan lender in the country. These politicians act in the interests of the corporations that bankroll them, not in the interest of working people. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s opponent, has shaken up this very establishment through his calls for a political revolution. He speaks loudly and often about the importance of free public college and connects it to the need for single-payer healthcare and a $15/hour minimum wage. He also connects the crisis of for-profit college with devastating, and often fatal, institutional racism in the United States. Black and brown men and women were the primary targets of predatory lenders that destroyed the economy in 2008 and are now being targeted with similarly predatory student loans. The fight for free public college, the cancellation of student debt, and $15/hour minimum wage is by its very nature a struggle against racism and all forms of institutional discrimination.

#MillionStudentMarch will be a day of local actions. From coast to coast, students, current and former, are organizing rallies and marches on college campuses and high schools. We are people of all colors, genders, and sexual orientation, and we are united to fight for education as a human right. Together, we can build an independent movement capable of winning tuition-free public college, a cancellation of all student debt, and a $15/hr minimum wage for all campus workers!